GSR

Meltzer actually refers to the 1st February show as the "Attempted Murder and Attempted Rape Hour" (this being the show where Embry strips down Kimberly leaving her in her bra). I guess he foresaw what was still to come from Embry in the upcoming weeks...

This is another in the continuation of Fuller & Jarrett vs Moondogs brawls, but this feud has been the best thing on the show for the past couple of weeks. Lawler comes out to help the Fuller and Jarrett team, and Fuller just disappears to the back. This is an awesome, wild brawl in the same vain as the original concession stand brawl between Latham & Ferris and Lawler & Dundee. They show a good 10 minutes of footage and it is tremendous stuff.

Another great brawl with the King seemingly replacing Robert Fuller in the feud to freshen things up. Way too much action to call and the majority of the bout is brawling at ringside. There is no finish to the match as referee Paul Neighbors gets taken out by a Jarrett chair shot, and official Frank Morrell comes out from the back and stops the match. For his trouble he gets a chair shot to the head from one of the Moondogs. With the Moondogs beating on Jarrett, Lawler retreats to the back and Eddie Marlin then appears trying to halt everything. After what happened to Neighbors and Morrell he should have know better, and he gets clobbered as well. At which point the King returns and throws fire in the face of Richard Lee. Back at the studio we are informed that upcoming there will be a no disqualification, no stopping match between the two teams.

The dogs win in under 30 seconds then stiff their opponents with chair shots after the match. Richard Lee is no longer covered in bandages, but is sporting a rather nasty looking 'burn' to the side of his face. A few other jobbers try to come to Frazier and Collins' aid but they receive the same treatment I think only a couple of these made the Yearbook, but these brutalisation of the jobbers were a weekly occurrence. The worse stuff are the the ones where you actually see the bruises, cuts, welts etc from all the stiff chair shots. Guess these poor guys weren't getting paid much either!

With Embry trapped in the ropes, and the referee trying to untangle him, the terrible C.J. throws powder in Anthonyâ's face, and the blinded White Boy is eliminated by Embry. Anthony gets a few shots on C.J. with the strap until Embry comes to her aid, and they then both take turns in whipping Anthony until Bart Sawyer and Tom Prichard come out and put a stop to it. C.J. is seriously bad. Embry and C.J. come out for an interview, and Embry says for Anthony it has to be the most embarrassing moment of his life in getting whipped by a woman. He also questions Anthony for wanting a rematch saying it will be the biggest mistake of his life as theyâll âwhip him âtil he bleedsâ. Embry is fantastic in this period of his career, and I remember being really disappointed (though not surprised) with Feinstein's shoot that this isn't touched on at all. He is just so sleazy that it's great, and this continues all the way up until his eventual face turn. C.J. lasts up until the middle of February, but with all the women abuse/man on woman violence that was going on, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the sexual allegations claimed were true.

I'm watching the same WCW set as El-P at the moment but am a bit further on in my viewing of it (trying to intersperse it with keeping up on my MMA watching), but Luger has been fantastic all year so far. Motivated in the ring and the interview referenced earlier (from the 6/10 show) was quality, he is basically irate and annoyed that he isn't on the Clash card, and as US champion he should be the numbe one contender. He then claims that Steamboat snuck into get the gold whilst he was busy with the US title, has had his chance, and should now step aside, and that he'll be at the Clash whether the powers that be like it or not. A couple of weeks after this interview there is more great heel goodness from Lex when he interrupts a Sting promo who is disappointed at Luger's actions at the Clash, and Lex claims that Sting should be greatful for everything that he has done for him and how if Steamboat wants to avoid him he needs to give up his number one ranking. Terry Funk has been awesome in everything that he has done so far. I don't know if you have got that far yet but on the show after you last posted about, he has an enjoyable squash against Cougar Jay on the 6/24 show where he is being pelted by rubbish and Jay takes a couple of great bumps to the floor. In my viewing I am upto where Jim Herd has suspended Funk indefinately for his actions at the Clash (trying to suffocate Flair with the plastic bag). Both Gary Hart and Funk are superb in this section where Jim Ross is reading the letter from Herd. The say how they wont take the punishment lying down, and what about Flair's punishment for attacking Funk and injuring his elbow with the branding iron? Funk then says how he did bag Flair and would do it again, but then tells the kids at home not to do what he did, which I felt was an awesome thing for a heel to come out with. The same show features the debut of Tom Zenk (against Mike Awesome of all people) and, bar the hokey looking Sleeper finisher, Zenk looked great, plus the continuation of the Steiners/Woman/Missy angle. I have to say that Nancy has been fantastic in this whole angle from day one. It is at the stage where someone tripped Scott at the Clash show and because of the camera angle you didn't know who it was, whether it was Woman or Missy (although in fairness Missy has been completely pointless and a waste of time with the Steiners here). Also, there was a strange incident in Scott's squash against Gene Ligon where Scott got whipped into the ropes, falls through them and takes an unplanned bump to the floor. I thought that this was a botch at first, but I think it may have been planned to show that *maybe* at the Clash Scott tripped on his own and it wasn't one of the girls. Anyway, this whole set has been tremendous and I would take this over today's product (which I rarely watch now) any day.

I don't know how many people have seen Richard Lee, but if they are unaware of him, this Yearbook will really open people's eyes to how great he was, especially on the mic. Additionally, here is a piece taken from the Observer's obituary of Larry 'Moondog Spot' Booker re. Lee.

A great wild brawl and both Moondogs are bloodied within about 60 seconds. Jarrett gets some retribution by hanging Richard Lee, but this enables a Moondog to hit the distracted Jarrett with a bone to gain the pin. Tremendous stuff and the crowd are totally into this feud.

Someone mentioned Best of the Best in (I think) the 2001 thread, so I would like to recommend Jodie Fleisch vs Jonny Storm from CZW BOTB2. Storm and Fleisch did a tour of North America and wrestled in ROH, CZW, PWF, NECW and some others, and of the three matches of theres that I have seen from said tour this is the best by a mile. Lucha style, with a bunch of highspots and they nail them all perfectly (Wallunit, Shooting Star to the Floor, Rewind Storm Insider, Springboard 720 DDT). Meltzer gave their ROH match a highish rating and I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as this match, as they botched several spots in the ROH match. The CZW match garnered Match of the Night honours, and received a standing ovation after they had finished.

I think that was mookieghana (I know I have seen them in the past somewhere also), but goodhelmet or someone else would be able to confirm.

Considering you had so little positive to say about the Rock'n'Roll Express in the PG-13 thread I am surprised to see you have changed your tune so quickly and now consider Morton the second best tag wrestler of all time. You didn't care for the 'face in peril structure', considered them both 'wimpy', said that their offense is 'hardly amazing', said that he wasn't charismatic or good on the mic. You were bored that '80% of their matches were Morton selling' as you wanted to see 'a contest', and that 'the match is just as good as the opponents' offence and Morton's selling of that offence'. For some who was so negative towards the team, I am surprised to see you rank him so high.

*through my gritted English teeth* It's called football, not soccer!!!!!

Keep an eye out for Billy Gunn jobbing to the Road Warriors as Kip Montana.

Powerslam ran tape trading adverts going back to at least 1994, although Rob Butcher was the primary trader in those days and the fact that he was second in command to Fin Martin probably helped. I can clearly remember finding issue 1 of Powerslam in a newsagents when I was on holiday with my parents (its predecessor Superstars of Wrestling stopped being sold in the area where I lived around issue 11 or 12, and with the relaunch, Powerslam received a greater distribution through the UK). After buying it I realised that it used to be SOW and they were selling back issues of that magazine. Purchased about half a dozen and there was a two page write up on ECW The Night the Line was Crossed and the magazine wrote it up like it was one of the greatest shows ever and a must see event. In the readers pages there was a plug from Rob Butcher advertising what tapes he had and this was one of them. Although a bit wary, considering he wrote for PS I thought if he was to rip me off I would complain and bitch to the magazine and Fin Martin (ludicrous in hindsight as Rob was a tremendous guy). Sent off for his catalogue and that was the start of my days in the Tape Trading community, although I was just a buyer until the DVD days when I got into it pretty heavily. There was a story on a UK forum about how Rob bought and paid off his own home from his time as a tape trader/seller (can't remember exactly when he called it quits as I was away at Uni at the time) until selling all his stock, videos, converters etc to GWI.

Wrestlefest '88 was Hogan and Andre in the cage. Don't know if you are refering to the MSG Savage/Dibiase match or the one from Philly?

I echo this completely.

How much of the Memphis-specific stuff is available? I have Trent's set, and the following three discs that I got from Mortimer when he quit trading Memphis TV 05.30.87, Memphis TV 06.06.87, Memphis TV 06.13.87 & 06.20.87, all which he got from yourself. Is there anything else?

I assume you probably figured this out eventually, but Prentice was calling Miss Texas "Bubba Johnson," saying she was a actually a man in drag. That dates back to the late '92 episodes where Prentice was saying how he wanted 'hormonal tests' done on Miss Texas before Leslie Belanger was prepared to face her. He refers to her at other times then as 'Testosterone Tessie' and later says that he has done some investigations and she was really born a man, and her birth name was Bubba Johnson. Back then he also claimed that Texas was having an affair with Eddie Marlin, and also that Marlin knew she was 'really a he'.

I went through the WON and listed any USWA TV that looked interesting. If I sent the list of stuff to you, would you be willing to look it over and see if there is anything you would add? Sure. I have listings for everything in the trusty old paper format but I just never got round to typing everything up. If you want to pm me what you already have for '92 that's fine and I will take a look over it. Was digging through my notes over the weekend and there is plenty of stuff that has been forgotten that is worth adding or certainly taking a second look at.

There is one interview (from Feb 1st) where Coraluzzo says that Kamala 'is going to beat the black off Koko B. Ware'. C.J. was ungodly awful, and she disappears without mention from TV. As stated it transpired that she quit the company complaining of sexual harassment by Embry. The Fat Boyz tag team were one and done and the Star Riders were even worse than them. The Sandman is around at the start of the year, and 1992 was also the year that we were treated to 'the Christmas Creature'. If anyone cares, here is the link to the reviews of the first four months of TV that I started http://ccgi.simania.plus.com/forums/index....c=3740&st=0

Jerry Lawler & Jeff Jarrett brawl with the Moondogs from a USWA spot show in Kennet, MO, aired on 01.18.92 TV. On another board I started reviewing USWA 1992 TV (until I got bored typing everything up) and here is what I wrote for this. There are also the weekly squashes from the Moondogs who just brutalise their jobber opponents.

1987 Memphis is great and certainly worth picking up. I struggled with the 1986 AWA discs to the point that I didn't even manage to finish off watching the set and moved on to something else.

I am slowly working my way through the 1989 World Championship Wrestling (watched 4/15 episode last night) and we are in the middle of the Hayes-Luger feud at the moment. One of the issues at the start of the year was that Hayes as a face was difficult to get into (a similar situation with the Midnight Express & Cornette who were also faces at this time), and he seemed to be just treading water (pointless tag matches alongside the likes of JYD, Dick Murdoch and Vincent Young (although the six man where he teamed with Young and Young's music played was part of the subtle tease of the eventual heel turn)). The moment he turned heel on Luger at the Omni and 'took' Hiro Matsuda's money (and I'm sure there is no need to go into how bad and pointless Matsuda was then) things really kicked in and this feud is pretty darn good. At this point he is also co-hosting the WCW show alongside Jim Ross and is great in this role, and the 4/15 show closed with Luger challenging Hayes 'there and then', Hayes accepted and they brawled until the show went off the air. Luger also had a match with Kendall Windham from 4/8 that is worth searching out featuring a great finish, where Windham goes for a crossbody off the top and Luger catches him and instantly turns it into a sweet powerslam for the pin. That show also has Bob Orton Jr vs Shane Douglas that is worth a look.