Matt D

They FINALLY put him in the suit. Part of that was the whole "Live from Charlotte's TV studio." thing they had going with PTW at that time. But he got to keep wearing the suit for the rest of his run at least. His event center promos for Bret shortly thereafter had him in it.

Not necessarily GOOD per se but.. The Fancam of Warrior vs Flair is hilarious just because when Warrior is doing all the foot stomping and rope shaking as part of his final comeback, he sells the leg Flair had been working on ONCE, for just a second, and it's the most disjointed thing. Then Flair keeps trying to give it a little kick as Warrior stomps around in a big circle and he keeps missing it as Warrior warriors away. He eats the clotheslines big time though.

I actually don't love stiffness in my matches. All things equal I'd probably prefer less snugness than more. It's supposed to be fake. Everything is just a symbol. In 2012 I cringe when they're really laying it in. I guess I just don't have the stomach anymore or something. I'll take coherence over believably any day.

I love how pissed off the Steiners seem after Liger makes the hot tag after they killed him dead for 6 minutes. I love how they don't really try to pin Liger for most of that time either, not til Scott hits the charging behind German. Then when he locks on the full nelson, you're sort of... "Aw, c'mon. Don't, Scotty." Then after the hot tag, they just swarmed Sasaki. I have a big problem with Liger just shaking off the beating though. At first it seems like he's not going to but the next second he's jumping off the top rope and running around. Really fun finish though.

Beverly Brothers vs Disasters at Summerslam 92 is slept upon as it's a pretty smart match, and both Earthquake vs Dibiase and Jannetty vs Skinner are good relatively short matches from PTW in November. I think Undertaker vs Haku from Japan (SWS I think) is a fun novelty too. I think of the pre-survivor series TV Bret Title defenses (Berzerker, Shango, Kamala, Virgil), the only one really worth watching is Kamala. There are better Bret vs Nord matches, but it's a rare 1992 Kamala match where they don't portray him as a moron. The Michaels IC title defense vs Virgil is more fun since Heenan is inexplicably rooting for Virgil until he catches himself. There's a fun Bossman vs Michaels match from right around this point but it's a bit anti-climactic.

Neither here nor there, but if you want to look at one taping which was sort of a change of an era, this is a pretty good one. Bret wins the Title, yes, but on top of that, on the Superstars taped here you get: Jannetty's return, First Bam Bam vignette The Headshrinkers first Superstars match. Doink's Debut Damien Demento's Debut. and Yokozuna's debut. For one taping, there's a lot of stuff going on there.

I thought he wasn't known to be leaving until just before Mania?

SOMEWHERE we had a conversation about the WWF champion wrestling on TV and when it changed. I forget where (heck, it might have even been on DVDVR) but it was absolutely when Bret won the title as a way of stressing he was a fighting champion and giving him legitimacy. Within the first month or so after they announced it, on free TV he beat Berzerker and Kamala (Prime Time), Virgil (Superstars), and Papa Shango (SNME, via the Sharpshooter which really killed off Shango in a lot of ways). They went out of their way to mention how much of a fighting champion he was and even to show footage of the defenses in a package.

They teamed vs Miz and Dibiase, but I think that might be it.

I think that Lance didn't go and look at results. He just remembered it how he remembered it, which, until you brought in the data, was how I remembered it too. Brock beat everyone including Hogan and Rock definitively. He got screwed by Heyman. Came back and beat Angle at Mania... and then it's all sort of a blur until Goldberg cost him the belt. Does anyone else remember it that way? Edit: Thinking back I was in England with no access to wrestling but Mania from 10/03-6/04 so that might explain some of it.

I still think it works as a more general statement. They invested a lot into Brock.

not the most meaningful double post ever.

Sean Mooney had to do that in this (Terrific) Terry Taylor vs Tito match I saw the other day. At the beginning of the match he and Lord Alfred had no idea why they were wrestling. It was on the Grudge Matches CV, so they obviously needed to have a grudge. Then halfway through the match, he randomly says "This grudge started when Tito Santana's luggage got sent to the wrong locker room."

I think he was being more general there, to be fair.

To be fair to myself, I ran down the list at Graham's site quickly. To be unfair to myself, I knew all those things instantly just by seeing them listed again. To me, given how few really good WWF TV matches there are, the MSG (and earlier the Boston, Toronto, Philly) house show matches are a real treasure trove. The Smash vs Steamboat match is one of Darsow's two best singles WWF matches, the other one being an 92 match with Bret. Even on the last taped MSG card, there's a surprisingly good Michaels/Snuka match. But yeah, if I have a niche it'd probably be early 90s WWF. I suppose in some workrate grand scheme of things, that's kind of sad, but at least I bring something different to the table. You would shake your head sadly if you asked me how Misawa or Kawada matches I've seen in my life.

there are a lot of neat/weird MSG things in 1991 WWF. The weird botched Paul Roma/Shane Douglas match. The Koko vs Tito match where Koko worked heel. Warrior vs Savage in the cage where poor Sherri got brutalized. Harts vs Earthquake+Bravo which isn't as good as it could have been. Kato vs Michaels and Tanaka vs Jannetty Rockers + Virgil vs Orient Express + Fuji Steamboat vs Haku Steamboat vs Smash The WEIRD Fuji vs Heenan mini feud And that's just the first half of the year.

Pretty much. As soon as Lex gets the belt and turns heel, the first challenger is Simmons, fresh off.... doing nothing of note after the Doom split. As a kid I was super impressed he beat Oz so easily.

Then there was a Prime Time match with Bravo. I thought there was a interview leading up to Mania but I was thinking of Hercules leading up to WM VI vs Earthquake instead.

Also, don't they not have to pay him the $5 million if he skips out early? Just a fraction of that.

The Valentine turn is actually pretty fun for what it's worth. As sort of a minor footnote.

If they were really writing Brock out with this, legit, they would never, ever, ever do it by having him hurt HHH like that. That's not how WWE would write Brock out. They'd have him attack Hunter, and get pedigreed for his trouble. If there was even a tiny chance that he wasn't going to be back, HHH wouldn't have put himself in that vulnerable position last night. Why are we even spending so much time talking about this?

I kind of like the idea of using Brock, who won't be sticking around for more than a year tops, to put over as many of their guys as possible. They need to rebuild and be thinking a few years into the future and nothing else has worked. I probably just wouldn't have started with Cena. I guess they were trying to have their cake and eat it too. If he was sticking around I'd use Sheamus to fight for his buddy Triple H here and build to a big grudge match for the belt, and have Sheamus actually win it. Then, if Brock's going to go, he can go. Right now I don't think they gained all that much from him.

People Power.

Ok I hate WWE's tag team title booking over the last few years. Some one should get a count of how many times a team won a non title match to set up a title match at the PPV(especially one they lost). It's not a bad angle in and of itself, if it's done once every few years. But they were doing it almost every month for a while.

Great, now I will have to come up with some bullshit response to my wife for why I'm laughing at the computer.