Matt D

Rose vs Adonis - 2/3 Falls - Rip chained to Steve Pardee This is the last live broadcasted wrestling show, so I assume the sheepherders have been bloodying up people. Owen sounds a little depressed by the idea. I know the legend was that the move to 11:30 actually helped the ratings since everyone rushed home to see themselves on TV. Is that true? Anyway, after the shenanigans from before Rip is chained to "rookie of the year" Steve Pardee. Pardee impacts things immediately by making the heels unable to have a stalling conference, frustrating Buddy to the delight of the crowd. Adonis chucks Buddy into Rip to start off which Buddy made look like a million bucks. Buddy hammers the arm intensely but Adonis comes back and Rose ends up headbutted to the floor again, right into Rip. The crowd is really into this. Buddy puts him immediately into a full nelson which is pretty well worked in the Adonis strength escapes and Buddy pulling the hair to cut it off. There's a great little touch where Buddy slams Adonis' head into the turnbuckle to weaken him enough to bring him down. I'm not a huge fan of a full nelson base but it's done well and when Adonis escapes the fans pop big. He nails Buddy and puts him in one of his own. Buddy tries to escape by lifting up Adrian and we end up in comedy hour with Buddy trying an elaborate escape only to end up back in it and then eating an Atomic Drop that sends him out of the ring. They reset into a test of strength and Buddy knees him immediately only to get totally out finessed. Adonis goes for the spinning toehold but Buddy kicks him over the top rope where he gets stuck which I think is our proper transition in the first fall. Buddy starts to really dismantle the hamstring/leg. And puts on an Indian deathlock. We get a long anklelock that Adonis finally turns out of. It's pretty funny. Buddy just hangs on with the leg until Adonis jams him with it. Adonis sort of shrugs off the leg work a bit too quickly in his comeback having a big comeback before he rolls Buddy up for the fall. This was easily the longest first fall I've seen in Portland and they did a good job of having a back and forth match with some limbwork and some comedy and some real hate. It wasn't my favorite structurally but it was still good. and geez, this second fall is 15 minutes. I may have overwritten that first fall as it was really back and forth. I'll just sum this up. Rip stooges a lot early in the second fall on the outside. We really get a full reset. Buddy's taunt as he charges into the corner is beautiful and of course he misses like he's supposed but then he takes over with a grinding front facelock. Adonis gets some hope spots and Buddy keeps grinding him down. We get some great fan shots during the facelock. And this is pretty much an endless facelock. The hope spots are good but it's just sort of there, to be honest. Buddy starts to go for the fall as they announce the time left but Adonis escapes from the Robinson backbreaker attempt and hits an atomic drop for the real come back. Adonis misses a top rope splash and Rose goes up himself. Pardee shakes the roles though and Buddy stumbles into Adonis who turns him over to win the fall and (I think) transfer the feud from Adonis to Pardee. I have to admit, I didn't love this match nearly as much of some of the stuff I've seen lately. I like that they really varied up the 2/3 falls structure and the first fall was pretty good. I don't mind a single-hold based match which is what we really got with the second fall, but this one sort of fell flat for me. As always they did a great job moving things along and keeping the territory rolling though.

if it's any consolation, the "Told you so" article to be written in 5 months will probably be all the sweeter now?

Buddy Rose vs Sal Martino 2/3 Falls - August 4, 1979 Owen announces they're moving the time slot from 11 to 12:30 to boos. I have no idea who Martino is. Think it's Bellomo actually. He hits an out of nowhere body press for a lightning first fall as the crowd goes nuts. 29 seconds which at the announcement makes the crowd pop more. Start of the second fall they tease a roll up and Buddy takes a powder pissed off.They slow things down with a Martino headlock base. Rose is expert at using the tights to put him in a tight pin position. Stunt granny is pissed off too. Martino grinds as the crowd counts but Rose backs out and takes another powder. Buddy starts to work on the arm but gets pulled into a headlock again. Fun stuff. This reminds me more of an AWA match with the use of a single hold for a base with the heel cheating to getting out only to end up back in it. We get a cut and end up with both guys standing again. Apparently we're in the third fall and the big transition was on a missed body press which sounds like a good comeback. Buddy won that fall. He has the advantage here too, working over the back. Martino sells a bearhug well but Buddy's lean forward head tucked bearhug is not his best stuff. Martino finally claps his way out and reverses a corner toss to do endless shoulder thrusts. They do the Dylan-hated headlock/collission spot but here it at least made some sense as they used the headlock as a base so much. A third cross body but this is just a 2 count tease. Martino goes off the ropes and runs right into a HUGE billy robinson backbreaker. Probably the best I've ever seen; super cocky pin and that's the match. Fun stuff, a totally different structure than most 2/3 fall matches we've seen. Shame for the cut though. The way he did the Robinson backbreaker would stand up to any 2013 finisher in the world, I think. It looked huge. Interlude: Rips promos are pretty brutal still. They're very simple with a lot of Either/Ors but his delivery is the clunkiest thing in the world. Buddy is still amazing though. Rose vs Adonis - 2/3 Falls - August 31, 1979 Don Owen is rocking an awesome suit again, but Buddy's robe is even better. Barr bars Rogers from ringside and they have security taking him away. Buddy stalls to begin. Buddy seems desperate to avoid contact at first and humorously crashes into Barr in the corner. When they finally get into it, he keeps taking cheap shots on Adonis only to get hit back hard and back away. They do some good back and forth including buddy eating a great monkey flip and a huge body slam before getting dropkicked out to the floor.He comes back in and tries a slam only to get press slammed by Adonis. This is a well put together first part of a match and Adonis' babyface work really needs more attention from people. Shine ends with a missed splash and buddy hitting a bodyslam backbreaker and a series of killer double stomps. He hits another elbow to the midsection and does a roll through for the first fall. Pretty awesome pinpoint stuff after the missed splash. Good first fall. As with most Portland 2/3 falls matches the second fall continues from the first with Buddy laying in to the stomach including the awesome stomach claw. This is great and just an example of Rose's versatility, as if we need more of that. Adonis is great making it look like death as he fights back. Buddy breaks a comeback by going to the hair and Granny is pissed again. They're really basing this second fall off the stomach claw and I love it. Adonis then goes to the hair and punches his way out which feels like comeuppance on Buddy. Adonis selling, punches Rose out of the ring. Buddy rabbits but Adonis slips in and does a sunset flip on the outside and Barr counts it which is hilarious. Adonis pulls him in and hits a top rope elbow before putting on his finish, the spinning toe-hold for a submission and the second fall. I'm really liking this match. Buddy starts the third fall selling the leg but all over Adonis. He immediately hits the Billy Robinson backbreaker but on his bad knee and he flails around selling it taking forever to get to Adonis who just gauges the hell out of Buddy's eye with no sign that he's about to let go. Vicious looking stuff. Rip Rogers runs out to break it out for the DQ and they start on Adonis' eye. they sell it that someone from the crowd threw a pen at Rose but Rose gets it instead thanks to Rip and nails Adonis the eye in it. Good match, good angle, sets up the next match. The usual great stuff.

Weirdly, you made the good stuff sound pretty good.

And how many times did Warrior just beat the snot out of her between the two?

I really like Lawler on commentary in 1993. He had a lot to offer between the magistrater being so quick and hilarious, the fact he has a joke for everything and some pretty good heel chemistry with Savage where you could sort of tell they had history even if it was never really drawn upon. And it's obvious how big a hit it was when he left and we were suddenly saddled with poor Stan Lane.

Sherri was the hardest worker on the WWF roster in January 1991. I'm not sure anyone even came close.

HHH featuring the Shield is such a great terrible idea.

I wish Bock did more steady announcing in 87-89. What I've heard from him has been great.

Neither here nor there but it's funny how rehearsed Rip seems in his promos around this time. The one where he breaks down Buddy's body from head to toe is particularly weird. Buddy vs Stan Stasiak - 7/28/79 -2/3 falls I've kind of been looking forward to this. I'm not sure why. It might be that Stan has a main event aura to him that a lot of the other guys Buddy's been wrestling with doesn't. This is is a title match and I want to see what Buddy does with it. Hey! the single arm push-ups. I don't think I've seen these in this run of matches. Stan was around 42 here and he definitely had a grizzled look to him. They start with stooging boxing with Buddy praying in the corner, ducking our of the ring, yelling at the crowd and stalling big. Rip comes out to cheer Buddy on. Buddy fears the heart punch and then Dutch comes out to chase Rip away. Buddy gets pissed only to have Adonis get him back in the ring. Once they get Buddy back in he immediately gets punched. It's pretty funny stuff. Buddy takes right over with a cheap knee and starts dismantling Stasiak only to get outpunched again. This is really good Portland First Fall wrestling. Buddy gets in charge again and works a long draping of Stasiak over his knees which is kind of weird but worked well enough. It builds to Buddy really going over the back with knees and stomps and a big slam on the floor which was a big deal spot. Buddy finally hits a huge Billy Robinson backbreaker for the first fall. Good stuff. Stasiak is good enough to keep selling the back into the start of the second fall and Buddy targets it almost immediately. Lots of solid backwork and little flourishes like Buddy pulling Stan's tights to get him down after a brief comeback. They go into the catapult set up bow and arrow over the knees again. It's not the world's best looking submission but given the context of the match and the flailing stasiak selling, it sort of works. Stan hits the rope and a quick knee drop but he's selling like crazy and gets nailed before he can fully recover leading to a Buddy bear hug which is kind of a weird choice. Both guys work it well with Stan going for punches only to get held back by wrenching pain. He finally gets the punch in but Buddy's right back on him. He's selling huge here. Buddy whips him into the corner and hits a huge bodyslam. He goes for it again but Stan reverses it and hits a killer heart punch for the second fall. This is a really good match so far. Between falls Buddy is selling the heart punch like death, literally. Rip starts giving him CPR at one point. Third fall starts with Buddy selling big. Stan's pretty much recovered from the backwork but he's had time to. Buddy's trying everything to avoid contact here. He heads out but gets fast counted back in. Stasiak's offense is all punches here but they look good and it fits his boxing background. This lasts a couple of minutes until Buddy gets a knee up to counter a back body drop. They do some positively 2013 finisher teases where Buddy almost hits the Robinson backbreaker and Stasiak counters by trying to hit the heart punch but Buddy gets out of the ring at the last second. Rip distracts Stasiak but gets hauled away by Dutch and Adonis. Stasiak hits that back body drop and we have three minutes left. Buddy stooges around the ring but gets caught coming back in. Stasiak goes for a third heart punch but Buddy hits the deck and Stan hits the post. Buddy starts on his hand with STasiak's comeback being ineffectual as he has to use his left hand. He finally hits Buddy with a right but hurts his own hand in the process and can't hook the leg. They do the headlock double collision spot that Dylan hates in the third act of a match. Stasiak does this awesome counter to get out of the pin by tapping Buddy on the back making him think that it's Sandy Barr breaking up the pin and time runs out leading to the draw. It didn't have as much zing of hate as some of the other things I've seen but it was a great straightforward TV match. This really highlighted the strength and versatility of the Portland 2/3 falls main event.

I think, and this is going to be a hard thing to really debate, that while part of it was his energy and his selling and his hope spots and pluckiness, some of it was the simple fact that he personally saw himself as a bigger star than he was. I think it had to mess with him a bit when he was tagging with the 1-2-3 Kid at the start of 94 and the crowd was chanting 1-2-3 and not Marty.

Even Axel Curtis would be better.

No, no, it's a sledgehammer on the wall of his office. I can see why you'd be confused.

Once they add JTG to the group, you know they're in trouble. Seriously, though. They will get the depush. No new talent in "WWE" history has survived without it. You can look at everyone from Bryan to Barrett to Sheamus to ADR. New character debuts. Gets over. Is pushed hard. At a certain point they get depushed heavily to see how they'll take it. When pushed again they've immediately become just another guy. In a lot of ways I don't think the Shield should have gotten over. Rollins' in the flack jacket is just a weird visual. There was so much room for them to screw up their six man tag style and it's a miracle that they've been all on the same page and have shown proper cohesion and restraint, especially given the indy bullshit background of two of them. Their whole "justice" purpose is pretty shoddy and they were outright shown to be flunkies for Heyman at one point. Really, there's nothing separating them from the Nexus except for the fact that they've been hugely protected in the ring. It's a lesson of how almost anyone can get over if handled well and almost anything can fall apart if not handled well.

Rose/Rogers vs Starr/Adonis 2/3 Falls - 7/7/79 Buddy and Rip are sporting bandana headbands. For those who care, Rip is clean shaven which looks weird but sort of highlights the physical resemblance between he and Buddy. Pretty sure this for the held up belts. Rose stooges all over for Starr doing a pretty good job flailing about and selling. He eats one killer dropkick after they break up a Rose attempt to interfere. It wasn't so high but he leaned into it. Nice little spot with a begging off Rogers getting pushed from behind by Adonis right into a headlock takeover. Buddy takes a huge looking bump off the screen in a heel miscommunication spot. Faces take out Rose, trying to come back in with charging billy goat headbutts and then Adonis wins fall#1 on Rogers with the spinning toehold. Buddy didn't get in at all. Fun shine. Rip is pretty good at starting falls by selling. In Portland, btw, the person who loses the fall has to start the match and can't tag until there is physical contact. Rip gets pulled right back into the faces' corner. We get some comedy stooging Heel In Peril as Rogers tries to make the tag until Bully runs in and hits. It was pretty entertaining, flailing stuff but this is a fairly big match in context and I think it went on a bit long in general. I really like Adonis FIPs from this era. Rose's stuff looks really good against him and Adonis is great at making desperate comebacks only to get cut off at the last second. It took me a while to really start to buy him as a babyface wrestler but he's really dynamic in these tags. Anyway, Rip cuts him off with a long chinlock/sleeper, which doesn't look great except for the fact that they keep moving with it. I do like the Rip/Rose pairing. It brings out a different dynamic than Rose/Wiskowski (which I of course liked). More energy, some more stooging, a little more desperation, a little less methodological. Here they keep cutting off hope spots by putting on a desperate hold. Starr finally has enough on the outside and comes in. Barr stops him and the heels hit first a double clothesline which Starr manages to break up and then a head-held second rope flying knee strike which looked pretty brutal for the second fall. Third fall has Adonis fighting out of the corner. I really love the structural shortcuts in these 2/3 fall matches. You can get the hot tag at the start of the third fall, which is what we get here. Starr gets in and starts unloading on Buddy but buddy hits a quick cheap shot and they trade blocked atomic drops. Roddy comes out and Buddy collides into him on the apron letting the faces roll him up for the win and the titles. This was a pretty abrupt third fall but felt totally in character for Piper as his sort of punch drunk way of interfering cost the heels the belts and moves us right back to Rose vs Piper which is what the crowd really wanted anyway. Good functional stuff.

It really is amazing how meaningless Mania has become. If I had to choose I'd choose going to the Raw after over Mania itself in a heartbeat.

I would have liked a bit more wearing down and beating on each other personally but it was brisk and interesting at least. not sure I'd call it necessarily good.

The eventual Shield depush is going to be nasty.

Traditionally, I feel like Vince's biggest issue has always been not knowing what to do with their excess money. Part of me thinks that if, instead of screwing around with icoPRO and the WBF and the XFL and the movies, they had created a more robust developmental system or focused even more money into breaking into international markets like it looked like they'd be doing with Shane in Japan or whatever, and just doubled-down on their main product, they would have been so much better off.

They're really quite good at finding new revenue streams. Doesn't that basically make everything else moot? If the product ever really does get hot again, everything's going to light up like a jackpot because of how well diversified they are. If it doesn't, they'll keep plodding along indefinitely.

It's interesting to me how thoroughly they retooled things for Ross in 93-early 94. I hadn't realized that the opening to Wrestling Challenge was as centered around him as Superstars' opening had been centered around the Ultimate Warrior's entrance in 90-91.

Rose vs Tim Brooks - Dog Collar Match - June 2, 1979 Been looking forward to this. Hey! Don Owen and his technicolor sports jacket sure looks a lot like Boyd Pierce! bossing around Buddy. Sandy Barr looks like a sesame street character with his shirt and red pants too. They really milk Rose putting on the collar. Part of the story was that Buddy agreed to the match but he didn't want it to be televised (Owen: "We should have known better than to put this on TV anyway" Awesome). Roddy comes out and holds Buddy still as they get the collar on him. Great performance by Rose here. Buddy uses the chain as a weapon from the get go but Brooks fights back and it's impossible to concentrate on anything but Buddy sticking his tongue out and selling everything like brutal death, especially once Brooks starts using it as a weapon. There's a bit too much choking/guzzling here which doesn't work well since we can't see Rose's face. Buddy comes back with a low blow which pisses off the fans and then he starts coming up with plenty of interesting ways to use the chain. After some nasty stuff Brooks hits a low blow of his own. This is pretty back and forth but the chain is such a game changer that it works. Brooks opens up Buddy and then wraps the chain around the wound. Just brutal. They make sure to mention that there's security keeping Wiskowski from coming out from the dressing room. The beating is nasty enough that they have to explain it. Brooks slams Buddy into the metal of the turnbuckle and when he goes for it again, it's reversed, but Brooks stops him and hits a haymaker, only to get his neck (hurt badly weeks before by the tandem in the face turn) jerked hard by the momentum of Buddy bumping. Awesome transition but they really don't capitalize on it. Brook is fighting back immediately. And then they end up doing this great spot with Buddy ending up tied around the ring post. Wiskowski finally escapes and makes his way out with a chair. Match is thrown out as Wiskowski gets the chain off of Brooks and starts pummeling him. Piper makes the save. They call it a dq win for Brooks. The fans consider that a huge win even though Buddy didn't quit. They set up a tag cage match out of this. What's here is really interesting but if they had given us 4 minutes of Heat after the neck injury before the come back and the crazy corner tying post at the end, it would have been borderline great. Rose/Rogers vs Adonis/Star - 2/3 Falls Match - June 30, 1979 We're into the end of June and they're saying Wiskowski is out with an injury so 24 year old Rip Rogers is subbed in as the Hustler. I like Ed but I've always liked Rip too, so I'm not complaining. Rip brings a different energy then Wiskowski. Early on, we get a pretty frantic shine with lots of arm drags and Buddy getting clotheslined over one rope and then the other. Babyfaces look good. Rip can stooge already and we get heel miscommunications and comedy setting up a first fall from a spinning toe-hold. All faces in the first fall. Second fall has Buddy being amazing pretending to be the one who was hurt instead of Rip. There's so much stooging here. Starr holds Rogers' leg out and Adonis hits a top rope elbow drop on it. Then Adonis holds it down and Starr hits a top rope splash on it. They're just dismantling poor Rip. Adonis does a leap frog over his partner onto the leg. Adonis gets kicked off RIGHT into Buddy's corner though. Great transition as Buddy keeps slamming his arm into the pole from outside letting Rip make the tag and immediately start on the arm. Buddy's so scummy that he can grab the tights on a hammerlock and you think logically that it really wouldn't make that much of a difference, that bit of extra leverage, but the fans hate it since it's Buddy. Adonis is pretty good at working babyface spots in and making them look good. The story here is that everytime he does, the heels are able to get a quick tag and go right back to the arm. Rip is definitely not as polished with is armwork but in this framework it still does its job. They even explain it a little that Buddy is teaching Rip to be a crippler too. They do the hope/tag spot three times to really ratchet up the heat with Starr and the crowd getting more and more frustrated. Then they start doing the more dirty southern tag stuff to ratchet it up more. Adonis finally fights back with one arm, gets overwhelmed and tossed into the corner, but Starr does the ol' "jump in the way to protect your partner" move and the fans go nuts as we get one of the hottest tags I've seen in Portland. Starr's offense looks really good with a hip attack and a nice butterfly suplex, but Rose comes out of nowhere to break up the russian legsweep. The heels keep swarming back though and it basically breaks down here. Heels finally hit a double clothesline in the chaos to take the fall. It was all a bit of a mess at the end there. There was good stuff after the hot tag but it all could have used a little more space and focus. Third fall starts with a fairly long Rogers chinlock and they go back to the face escapes/heels tag heat set up. Buddy hits a nice neckbreaker (the old "Tony Borne hold"). Rose is a great cut off guy, just when it comes to timing and in giving the face enough to make it a real hope spot. One problem with current WWE tag wrestling is that you can tell when something's going to happen just by seeing where it is in the match and a few visual clues. It's all paint by numbers. There were hope spots here that I would have sworn would lead to the hot tag but Rose bore down believably and effectively. When the hot tag finally comes it's awesome with Star crawling backwards on his back at hyper speed to make the tag. Adonis comes in with a lot of fire and it breaks down again. Rogers tosses Rose the time keepers chair but Starr gets it and nails Buddy causing the heels in front of the ref. They give the belts to the heels despite the DQ and Dutch Savage comes to argue about this. The fans are irate in the face of the confusion until the faces attack them and Barr takes the belts back away. Barr, at the end DQs both teams and holds the belts up. There's this great moment where Buddy forces himself into the foreground and looks pissed off but the VQ is too poor and it's too quick to get a good screencap of it. The heat segment on Adonis was super as was the stooging in the first fall. The whole thing doesn't entirely hold together out of context, but in context to set up the belts being held up it works well.

As a kid I much preferred Out of this World to Small Wonder. I am glad that I will never, ever see it again though. Some things should be kept in one's dusty childhood memories. It's given me a lifelong love of "So you want to swing on a star." though.

Rose vs Piper, Lumberjack match, May 19, 1979 Fairly heated arm stuff to begin with Piper in charge. Wiskowski cleverly trips Piper from the outside to lead to the first transition and Buddy taking over and grinding down on Piper. Buddy hammers away on Piper, alternating between corner throws, clubbers and a pretty nasty chinlock. Wiskowski goes for another trip but Stasiak comes around to police him. This is a one fall match so it has a more traditional shine/heat+Comebacks+cutoffs structure. Piper does one of the best wristlocks out of a chinlock I've seen. They really fight for it and Rose's facial expressions are great, and then Buddy takes the hair and puts a headlock back on. They make great use of the lumberjacks with Buddy kicking Piper out over and over again as Wiskowski pushes him back in. Super simple spot but it looks great. Just endless stomps. Piper has really good haymaker comeback punches and Buddy makes them look great, but a clubber cuts off Piper again and Buddy hits a HUGE back body drop. He goes for another and Piper kicks him. Buddy still goes a pin attempt but it's really the start of Piper's full punchdrunk comeback. Rose goes out to escape it but he keeps getting tossed back in by the lumberjacks. Fun stuff with just no escape for Buddy. Piper had a great act in 79. He's really a perfect foil for Buddy. He just mauls away until he misses a dropkick and they go back and forth for a minute until Piper puts on an airplane spin which is somewhat less impressive than it'd be ten years later. It end up on the floor with all the wrestlers fighting Buddy and Wiskowski in destroying Piper. Killer Brooks comes out of the crowd (he'd been put out in the big turn for Piper) with a chain and clears house as the crowd goes nuts. Huge moment. They roll Buddy back in and Piper wins as Brooks gets the biggest pop possible. Match itself wasn't as good as the last one but they used the lumberjack gimmick well and Brooks' return worked as well as it possibly could have. Buddy Rose vs Johnny Eagles - 2/3 Falls - May 26, 1979 I've never seen any Johnny Eagles but he's announced as the Houdini of the Mat. Lots of BS about whether Wiskowski will stay or not to begin. Eagles gets pissed off, nails Buddy out of nowhere and rolls him up for the first fall, just like that. Mid-Fall we get Brooks swearing more vengeance. Second fall starts with some fun comedy wrestling with Buddy trying escapes and just getting made to look like a goof in the best way possible. Just these awesome lackadaisical headlocks that Buddy will escape and just end up right back in. The absolute coolest was this reversal of an ankle lock type position that I can't even explain. I just loved it though. I'm sure this stuff was super comtaamon in WoS matches but in this setting it's fun and the crowd eats it up. Buddy keeps going to the hair to get the advantage as the crowd gets more and more pissed. There's the impression of poor Buddy watching a magic trick unfold before him as Eagles escapes from a headscissors in this weird obtuse way, helpless to stop it no matter what he did. You get the impression that buddy was having the time of his life eating all of this stuff. Oh man, then Buddy keeps doing headstands to get out of a headscissors and Eagles keeps jamming him. This stuff is hilarious. Buddy finally has enough and starts unloading only to make the mistake of putting on armbar. Even after a bit of chicanery, Eagles reverses it. Buddy catches him in the corner and puts on the Billy Robinson backbreaker but ref Sandy Barr gets kicked in the face. Buddy then hits an illegal karate chop, wakes Barr up and gets the second fall. Third fall has Buddy go for another immediate chop but Eagles counters and takes over. Buddy manages to get him into one of those catapault into the ropes, land on the knees moves which I haven't seen him do before. He hits another Billy Robinson backbreaker and gets a quick pin. This is all set up for Brooks coming out with a chain though. Buddy blades and Brooks just keeps dragging him around the arena with the chain, all the way to the interview area where he gets rose to cry uncle. Buddy gollums until Wiskowski comes out to talk for him. Hugely entertaining match which had both guys looking good and pretty effective post match to set up the chain match.

I've made the argument before and I really think it's true: The shift to El Matador really helped Tito's matches in 91-93. Up until then, he'd hit a real formula where whenever Tito was going to lose, he'd hit the flying forearm but the heel would roll out of the ring or get his foot on the ropes and at that point, you knew Tito couldn't possibly win. Having El Paso de la Muerte in his back pocket suddenly made everything a heck of a lot more interesting.