General thoughts about 1993

[Loss]

Post them here.

[jdw]

I feel a little sorry for Loss now having to make a placeholder post for every thing on the disk... which looks like 650+ by my count.

 

John

[Loss]

Yes! 1993 had more segments than 1996 by far.

[flyonthewall2983]

Looking at stuff from that year then, one could liken WWF to the Fall of the Roman Empire. The fallout from the steroid and sex scandals meant that everything was changing, and a revolving door of talent was already in the process of happening. Flair left, Hogan left, Savage was being reduced, Heenan and Okerlund were gone and replaced by less entertaining characters. The one good thing that happened was Raw because it was a breath of fresh air from the canned stuff they were doing at the time.

 

My general memory of WCW in '93 was that that was the year they really started to mount a credible offense to WWF finally. Wasn't without it's own blunders though (not having Flair wrestle right away, Paul Roma the Horseman, the Shockmaster gaffe, the bloated promo film for Beach Blast, "Lost In Cleveland", etc, etc.). Vader was at his height in the company, and his domination in the ring made the World Heavyweight Championship mean something. It's in stark contast to Yokozuna, who just sat on people for a finish. His Starrcade match with Flair (no doubt in my mind it'll be part of this comp) was as perfect a program as WCW could make it.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

It was around 1993 that I first truly discovered WCW. I was 12 years old and grew up a WWF and AWA fan because that's all we got on TV in small-town Minnesota (we were too far out in the boons for cable). My mom would buy me a wrestling magazine every now and then which allowed me to at least be aware of WCW, but that was the extent of my knowledge. The only time I ever got to see the product was if we happened to be on a family vaction and the hotel had TBS as part of its cable package.

 

A co-worker of my father's would usually record WWF PPVs and send them home with my dad because he knew that we enjoyed wrestling. My dad brought home a tape one day and we popped it in, hoping to see Summer Slam. It was not Summer Slam. It was a WCW PPV instead (can't recall which one). At first my brother and I were pissed, but as we watched, I recognized some of the wrestlers from the magazines. I also fell in love with the product pretty much right away.

 

My love of wrestling grew over the years and morphed into trading VHS tapes in the late 90s and gobbling up any 80s footage I can find today. Would I enjoy wrestling as much as I do if not for that fateful day in 1993 when I got a WCW PPV instead of Summer Slam? Who knows. Either way I'll be forever grateful to my father's co-worker.

 

I plan on waiting a bit to start purchasing these yearbooks because I would like to try and watch everything in as close to chronilogical order as I can. Plus I have a lot of other stuff I need to catch up on first. But seeing the lineup on this '93 set really brings back memories and I can't wait to watch it one day.

[Graham Crackers]

I'm really surprised you guys left out the AAA 8/1 trios where Love Machine and Eddie Guerrero turn on Santo and Blue Panther joins the tecnicos. I figured that kind of big double turn would insure it had a place on the set. I know I pimped it in the DVDVR thread.

[Loss]

I'm really surprised you guys left out the AAA 8/1 trios where Love Machine and Eddie Guerrero turn on Santo and Blue Panther joins the tecnicos. I figured that kind of big double turn would insure it had a place on the set. I know I pimped it in the DVDVR thread.

That's been mentioned a couple of times, and will go on the supplemental set when we put it together.

[Loss]

1993 was a better year for wrestling than 1996, but I think 1996 was an easier year to get through in this format, because there were plenty of great, memorable angles AND good matches. 1993 was a workrate year and had some good angles, but most of them were taking place in the remaining territories. I expect 1992 to be easier to get through than either year because it's probably the most balanced year we've done so far. It doesn't have the hot angles 1996 had -- at least not as many -- but it has its share, and there are good matches happening regularly in most promotions, not just those in Japan.

[Loss]

Glad to see Kevin Ridge walking through this. This is one the yearbooks that hasn't had as much staying power as others, and I'm not sure that's warranted. Hopefully Kevin walking through this will draw a little more attention to it.

[WingedEagle]

Finally ready to start posting my thoughts on this bad boy. I'm quite a few discs in already but have letting my notes gather in a spreadsheet. Time to correct that.

[Kevin Ridge]

Was a lot of fun to revisit this one. AJPW is the promotion of the year especially if you have watched their weekly TV for 93. They delivered the best high end matches and the Real World Tag League final is probably ends up as my match of the year. I found WWF to have a really fascinating year. Look at their PPVs. Royal Rumble had a decent undercard not entirely represented on yearbook but the Rumble itself was very poor. There was such a lack of depth and credible challengers and once Undertaker got eliminated by Giant Gonzalez the Rumble limped to the end. One of the weakest Rumbles. WrestleMania was a complete dud. The worst WrestleMania to me. The matches are average to poor with no stand outs in the card. The setting does not do it for me as your WrestleMania. The Hogan stuff at the end is garbage. King of the Ring is probably their best PPV of the year with Bret Hart delivering three good matches and Yoko squashing Hogan. The Bodies were part of the best matches on both Summerslam and Survivor Series. A tag team that should have been pushed more especially with the lack of quality tag teams in WWF once you get into 94. Doink was another guy who got jobbed out too much. Hart/Lawler was the feud of the year and you can expand that more into Lawler versus WWF as it also took place in Memphis. Raw debuted and felt so fresh. Also got some memorable and excellent TV matches during the year. I really loved the Bret versus Yoko cage match from MSG. It might be my favorite WWF match of the year! WCW was not very good. Cannot believe they get their guy Flair back and use him so poorly for most of the year. Awful WarGames, stupid over the top production segments and not enough good matches. Flair became a changed man though at end of the year as the confidence was back. WCW will really light it up for the first half of 94. I think if WCW had a stronger year and business was not down as much for the major North American groups that we would be looking back more fondly on the year of 93.

[PeteF3]

There has been a decided up-down-up-down pattern when viewing Yearbooks for the first 4 years of the ‘90s. The ’90 Yearbook was a new experience for me and featured a ton of rare stuff from the last gasp of the multiple-territory days. Then we dipped in ’91 as WCW went to shit and WWF business declined, and USWA-TX disappeared. ’92 was by far the strongest year so far form an in-ring standpoint and will be hard to top as the decade continues—and then we dip back down in quality in 1993. As I said in the Flair/Vader review, basically the only promotions on the planet in as good or better of a spot at the end of ’93 than at the end of ’92 were UWFI (having just drawn 46,000+ for Takada/Vader) and AAA (running successful shows again in LA), and even AAA had scandals of its own as El Hijo del Santo was going through a messy public divorce and you had the Konnan/Jake Roberts mess earlier in the year. The WWF closed out the year having lost two iconic announcers and with Vince under indictment, after having a mostly hot year creatively if not financially. The USWA had a dark cloud over its head with a temporary end to its WWF partnership, Jeff Jarrett leaving, and most importantly Lawler under indictment of his own. WCW closed on about the highest note possible but was still in shambles business-wise without the consistent in-ring action to make up for it. All-Japan’s business took a hit with the departure of Jumbo Tsuruta and despite a high finishing note of their own had to deal with a mess of a Tag League—with their TV due to get cut in half in ’94, things can’t have been going all that swimmingly. New Japan was the world’s biggest promotion and even they regressed, if only because they had to after such a great ’92. Choshu blew out his achilles and gave up both wrestling and booking while recovering, and they were simply past the days of being able to sell out Sumo Hall 7 straight days. Even RINGS was dealing with a long-term injury to Maeda and PWFG seemed moribund. I confess to not knowing enough to say how the women’s promotions were doing, but it seems the interpromotional stuff peaked with DreamSlam and at the minimum, they weren’t doing great enough to give anyone an optimistic view of the future of wrestling. And unfortunately, 1994 figures to break the pattern—I hope to be surprised but I remember the WWF sucking and WCW having a good first half and a shitty-ass second. The bright side is the Japan and lucha stuff will mostly be new to me, and I hope it carries the load.

 

The ’93 Observer Award ballot follows. Real-life winners in parentheses.

 

CATEGORY A

 

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (Vader)

1. Vader

2. Nobuhiko Takada

3. Aja Kong

Not an easy category in a year where business declined almost universally. The constant here is that these people generally worked on top of promotions that didn’t. You could objectively say that Vader was just as bad of a domestic draw as Sting was, but the Vader mark in me says WCW’s problems were beyond the capabilities of any one man besides Hogan—and since he was mostly inactive and not drawing when he was active, then the bar needs to be lower than “Not Hogan.” Vader was the best worker in the U.S. and was still a draw in Japan and putting on very good matches in an unfamiliar style. Takada was the ace of a booming company that was selling out baseball stadiums with no television. Kong was the ace of the top women’s promotion and with all the interactivity going on basically the focus of the entire women’s wrestling scene.

 

MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER (Kenta Kobashi)

1. Kenta Kobashi

2. Vader

3. Dynamite Kansai

I think there’s a lot more ’93 Kobashi that I need to see, but I saw enough down the stretch to agree with the consensus that he was the best in the world. Kansai may be a personal bias pick because all I saw from her were the “big” matches, but they’re my awards.

 

BEST BABYFACE (Atsushi Onita)

1. Bret Hart

2. Kenta Kobashi

3. Bob Armstrong

The Lawler feud did wonders for Bret as did the beginnings of the Owen turn, as he got to show off more sides of his personality—he got to work an aggressive brawling style, he got to work heel (always a strong consideration when determining Best Babyface!), and he even got to show off a bit of acting chops. Kobashi was finally in a bigger setting as Misawa’s new partner, but he was still a credible underdog against the other top guys, where his playing to the crowd and crying act still really worked. I’m not sure it says much for Cornette’s ability to book top babyfaces when his best one is a retired semi-active commissioner, but Bullet Bob was the best babyface interview in wrestling.

 

BEST HEEL (Vader)

1. Vader

2. Jerry Lawler

3. Cien Caras

As the first real “heel ace” since late ‘80s Flair, Vader did an excellent job artistically if not financially of being a foil for almost every other top WCW babyface. Lawler’s Memphis act seemed really fresh and new in the WWF setting. Caras was a guy who I really should have given a spot two earlier in the decade. He and Konnan had a huge moneymaking feud and I didn’t want to give Konnan a Best Babyface nod, so…

 

FEUD OF THE YEAR (Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart)

1. Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart

2. Genichiro Tenryu vs. New Japan

3. Cactus Jack vs. Vader

A recurring theme throughout these awards is me being a sucker for anything that spans multiple promotions. Bonus points if the roles get switched accordingly. It was one of the first WWF feuds in ages to show some real personal hatred that didn’t involve Randy Savage, and it started to incorporate other people throughout the year before dying a quick death. Not that it matters to ’93 specifically but I always loved how this feud, once Lawler came back, was always simmering under the surface and could be resurrected at a moment’s notice in years to come. It wasn’t until Bret turned heel 4 years later that it would be finally dead and buried—a Tommy Rich vs. Buzz Sawyer for the new generation. I liked the Cactus/Vader matches seemingly more than anyone else, and the initial injury angle was the best or second-best WCW “thing” of the year.

 

Despite continuing to have great interpromotional matches that played off each other, I had trouble getting into Toyota/Yamada-Ozaki/Kansai as a “feud,” rather than rematches that simply got booked. They were great but they almost seemed like TWA/WWA fantasy-booking rather than a long-standing running issue. Hokuto/Kandori the same way, though that definitely seemed more personal. If I watched more AJW/JWP/LLPW I could be persuaded to change my mind.

 

TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR (The Hollywood Blonds)

1. The Hollywood Blonds

2. The Heavenly Bodies

3. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki

Shame about the ending, but the Blonds were the best thing about WCW television for the first 6 months of the year. The Bodies had at least 3 different line-ups but Jim Cornette had valid paperwork stating they were a CORPORATION and thus are to be evaluated as one unit. Domestic tag team wrestling is about to take several steps backwards and the Bodies and Rock ‘n Rolls are still anchoring a promotion. I can’t say any more about Kansai/Oz.

 

MOST IMPROVED (Tracey Smothers)

1. Yokozuna

2. Brian Lee

3. Marcus Alexander Bagwell

Tracey’s great but the Observer readers must not have “gotten” the Southern Boys/Young Pistols—he was great before ’93. Yokozuna turned into a terrific monster heel and was able to stand out as something other than a Vader ripoff. Brian Lee was the shock of the set for me—I suspect he’ll never be as good again but the heel turn instantly turned his career and his work around. Bagwell/Scorp was a fun team that was more than just “Scorpio and his anonymous whitebread partner.” I doubt there are a lot of hidden gem Bagwell singles bouts but he carried his end in tags just fine.

 

MOST UNIMPROVED (Rick Rude)

1. Rick Rude

2. Mr. Perfect

3. Terry Gordy

Sorry for the Gordy pick, but he would have gotten consideration even before the coma. That fucking MVC title loss still grates on me for how awful it was, not that Doc, Kawada, or Taue were blameless. Perfect had good stuff throughout the first half of the year but by his departure it was time for him to go. Rude was still a good heel capable of great heel interviews, but he wasn’t the top threat that he was in ’91 or ’92 and his match quality plummeted. The best Rude matches of the year were made by his opponent.

 

MOST OBNOXIOUS (Vince McMahon)

1. Eddie Gilbert

2. Joey Styles

3. The WCW Amateur Challenge guy

Again, the King of Philadelphia sketches were airing at the same time Lost in Cleveland was, and I had to ponder a bit about which was worse. Consider the implications of that. Styles’ Noo Yawk street tough character, who thought reciting pop culture references equated to wrestling commentary, was just barely starting to get tolerable at the end of the year. I’ve never seen or heard a more condescending ass than that Amateur Challenge announcer. I know it’s hard not to be condescending about the videos we saw, but he was symptomatic of a larger issue within the company that thought running these on the air was a good idea. This is a bad, bad year for annoyances: Rob Bartlett could not crack the top 3.

 

BEST ON INTERVIEWS (Jim Cornette)

1. Jim Cornette

2. Jerry Lawler

3. Cactus Jack

Cornette wins this comfortably. Funny promos, serious promos, and promos that drew money (to some degree). It’s easy to get all the promo time you need when you own the company, but at least it’s Cornette’s promotion and not Mr. Fuji or Harvey Wippleman. This year was the true balancing act for Lawler, as he was better and more effective as a heel in a fresh new setting than he was in Texas or 1990 Memphis. Turning somebody like Cactus Jack babyface seemed a lot more daring and out-of-the-box at the time than it does in retrospect, and without Foley’s mic skills or in the hands of the WWF, it could have been a disaster.

 

MOST CHARISMATIC (Ric Flair)

1. Ric Flair

2. Konnan

3. Atsushi Onita

I have to give Konnan some props, somewhere. This isn’t really a category I’m too concerned with in a time when business is down.

 

BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER (Hiroshi Hase)

1. Hiroshi Hase

2. Shinobu Kandori

3. Negro Casas

3a. Doink the Clown

“Technical wrestling” like tag wrestling is starting to retrogress, and not just in the U.S. as the big Japan heavies tend to be shying away from it and Mexico was much ligher on great technical title bouts. Hase is the exception—he was the most compelling heavyweight mat wrestler in the world. I couldn’t in good conscience put Doink in the top 3 but I felt he deserved acknowledgment. He was about the last guy left in the U.S., aside from Backlund, working a true mat-based style. Kandori was better but gets a vote for similar reasons to Doink—she stood out within the style, plus she had the legit judo credentials backing her up.

 

BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD/BEST BRAWLER (Cactus Jack)

1. Cactus Jack

2. Sabu

3. Terry Funk

Not sure anyone has ever put more thought into garbage brawls than Cactus Jack. I think he could have been a valuable asset as a Pat Patterson-type, specializing in laying out hardcore matches. Sabu still comes off as fresh and exciting in this setting, and Funk tended to reign him in—like Cactus, he knew the importance of psychology regardless of how garbagey the setting.

 

BEST FLYING WRESTLER (Jushin Liger)

1. Jushin Liger

2. Manami Toyota

3. 2 Cold Scorpio

Do I have to defend any of these? Rey Jr. should get a shout-out, but I was more impressed by him as a sympathetic babyface in the matches we saw than as a flyer.

 

MOST OVERRATED (Sid Vicious)

1. Lex Luger

2. Sid Vicious

3. Ultimo Dragon

That fucking Lex Express push…God, that just didn’t get any better. Sid was the real target of the Observer reader’s wrath and for good reason, as he got a fat contract and (right before the hotel stabbing) an agreement to an even fatter four-year extension despite not showing any tangible reason to have earned it. I’ll say it: Ultimo Dragon fucking sucks and I can’t believe he was pushed all the way to the IWGP Jr. title. I’d have preferred to see Honaga get another reign, at least he understands what a heel and a babyface are (that matters, even in Japan).

 

MOST UNDERRATED (Bobby Eaton)

1. 2 Cold Scorpio

2. Arn Anderson

3. Felino

I have no clue if Felino was really underpushed or not. But he was terrific and with his boundless enthusiasm should have been a top babyface and worked a long series against Negro Casas. 2 Cold should have been pushed to the moon, like to U.S. or at least TV title levels. I think he was that good, and he had that…er, “urban” appeal. Not many wrestlers have gotten saddled with more crap in one year than Arn Anderson, from Erik Watts as an opponent to Paul Roma as a partner to being an anonymous sidekick on A Flair for the Gold to getting stabbed ina hotel room, Arn deserved better in every aspect.

 

BEST PROMOTION (All-Japan)

1. All-Japan

2. New Japan

3. AAA

New Japan continued to be great but I think it took a decided step back in quality—not a big one, but a noticeable one—while AJPW moved forward. #3 is kind of a dogfight, as I had to think about AAA, UWFI, and even the WWF. I went with AAA because it really seemed like a revolutionary game-changer for the business.

 

BEST TELEVISION SHOW (All-Japan)

1. All-Japan

2. Monday Night Raw

This one is always hard to answer in a Yearbook format. AJPW had maybe the best in-ring year ever to this point and Raw had the feel of an unpredictable old-time studio show, a direction the company really needed after such a bland 1992.

 

MATCH OF THE YEAR (Toyota/Yamada vs. Kansai/Ozaki, 4/11)

1. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (12/3)

2. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (12/6)

3. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (DreamSlam II, 4/11)

4. Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (DreamSlam I, 4/2)

5. Sting vs. Big Van Vader (strap match, SuperBrawl III, 2/21)

6. Masahiro Chono vs. Hiroshi Hase (8/6)

7. Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams (8/31)

8. Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (7/29)

9.. Satanico vs. Pirata Morgan (11/26)

10. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (6/1)

’92 was hard to evaluate because of the sheer avalanche of great choices. ’93 had a lot of great stuff to consider but was a lot more top-heavy—every promotion had “big” matches that I didn’t like at all and no obvious blowaway match really stood out. The only thing I’m confident on here is what’s in the top 4 and what’s in the 6-10 slots. It’s all interchangeable after that.

 

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Jun Akiyama)

1. Bobby Blaze

2. The Smoking Gunns

3. Juventud Guerrera

I gave Jun the #2 spot last year, though I suppose by MLB’s standards he’d be eligible in ’93. No one on a Yearbook stood out so I went with memories and reputation. The Gunns were two of the least-experienced indy guys ever to land a WWF contract and were almost immediately put on television, which is impressive on its surface, and they had some good performances despite the cheesy gimmick. Blaze was pretty compelling as a Mikey Whipreck/southern-style-junior-heavyweight guy.

 

MANAGER OF THE YEAR (Jim Cornette)

1. Jim Cornette

2. Tammy Fytch

3. Vince McMahon

Not a good year for managers at all, after a strong ’92. Another thing starting to go the way of the dodo. Cornette and Fytch lapped the field to the point where I was lost as whom to vote for for #3. I decided to cheat like crazy. Vince cut promos for guys and he appeared at least once at ringside, so he did just enough to be considered.

 

BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Jim Ross)

1. Jim Ross

2. Bob Caudle

3. Tony Schiavone

Not really a good year for announcers, either.

 

WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Gorilla Monsoon)

1. Joey Styles

2. Vince McMahon

3. Rob Bartlett

Not really a good year for annonce—yeah. Vince will almost always be good at getting over angles and he had more to get over than in ’92, but as a play-by-play man his worst tendencies are starting to come out more and more. I don’t have anything more to say about the dumpster fire that was Rob Bartlett. I suppose ECW is testimony that maybe announcers aren’t as important as some would like to think, because they were able to generate a cult following despite the utter incompetence of the various people, from Styles to Sulli to Tod Gordon, that they had behind the mic.

 

CATEGORY B

Note that for a lot of these, the Observer readers got them right.

 

BEST WRESTLING MOVE (Vader’s moonsault): Have to go with this—just a mind-blowing move the first time it was seen.

 

BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (DreamSlam I): No argument with this either, though Dream Rush was still a better show.

 

WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Fall Brawl): In addition to being the least successful, BattleBowl was possibly the least consequential pay-per-view ever, despite having one of the best battle royals ever.

 

MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (Cactus Jack amnesia angle): Oh dear God, so many choices. Cactus Jack sacrifices himself to get an angle over and gets rewarded with Lost in Cleveland. Sid Vicious is hyped as being at a live Clash after the stabbing incident. Tully Blanchard is advertised, by name, as appearing at Slamboree. Cheetum the Midget tries to blow up Sting and Davey Boy’s boat. The WWF tries to portray the entire country of Japan as a heel—there’s old-school booking that’s good and there’s old-school booking with an ugly side. We didn’t need a rehash of the Jim Ross “Are there any nice-looking Orientals?” days. The Observer jumped big-time on the WWF using bullshit 900 line votes, like advertising on the West Coast airing of Raw despite final results already being announced out East, and having fans vote for an opponent despite the match already being taped. In the end, I have to go with Lost in Cleveland. It was the only storyline of this bunch to begin with real promise—the rest were bad or uncompelling programs simply made worse. The rampant false advertising by WCW was a major, major issue, though.

 

BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Bobby Heenan): I wish I could vote for Bobby in his last strong year, but Dutch Mantell was best in the land.

 

FAVORITE WRESTLER (Ric Flair): Kansai was my favorite in-ring wrestler to watch, but Ric managed to win me over by the end of ’93. Crazy to think now with how fucked up his life has become but he came off as all that was right in a horrible business, rising phoenix-like above a WWF de-push and WCW’s morass of shit and Sid fetish.

 

LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Sid Vicious): Lex Luger, hands down. No wrestler has been involuntarily shoved down the viewers’ throats more, before or since. A deteriorated wrestler in the 100% wrong role. John McAdam pointed out that 1993 was the height of grunge—outside of maybe the height of the counterculture era there was not a worse time to be pushing an All-American goody-two-shoes as your top babyface.

 

WORST WRESTLER (The Equalizer): The Wrestlecrap on this Yearbook tended to be of the non-wrestling variety, so sure. I can’t vote for Catherine White or anyone from the Amateur Challenge, after all.

 

WORST TAG TEAM (The Colossal Kongs): See above. I literally think WCW was basing its signings by reading Apter mags. A ton of guys who constantly showed up in indy results like the Kongs and Charlie Norris were appearing on national television whether they were ready or not.

 

WORST TELEVISION SHOW (GWF on ESPN): Don’t think any of this made the set, which probably speaks volumes. I was surprised it was still on the air. What a goddamned waste. I wonder how wrestling would have changed if Jarrett had landed that ESPN spot back in 1986.

 

WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji): You know, as bad of a year for managers as it was…not many people stood out as horrible. Managers in ’93 tended to be negligible guys who just didn’t stand out, like Wippleman and Bert Prentice. Fuji was bad but was almost instantly marginalized once he became the manager of the #1 guy. I hate babyface Paul Bearer with a passion, so I’m giving this one to him.

 

WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (4 Doinks at Survivor Series): See the Worst Wrestler/Tag Team votes. No Pearl-Cazanas or Sid-Nightstalkers on this set that I can recall. I’m on board with this, as the Doink babyface turn was one of many, many, MANY disappointing events to take place for the WWF in the last half of the year.

 

WORST FEUD (Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez): Hard to argue with this one, though Lex Luger vs. Ludvig Borga deserves strong consideration as the WWF actually expected that to main event shows.

 

WORST ON INTERVIEWS (Mr. Fuji): I suppose, but he basically stopped talking once Cornette showed up. Babyface Crush was godawful.

 

WORST PROMOTION (WCW): Yes. Just some absolutely unfathomable bullshit, like Black Scorpion levels of what-the-fuckery, all throughout the year or at least all throughout the post-Watts tenure. I have to say that the USWA would have been a really, REALLY tough watch if not for the WWF talent appearing. The non-McMahon stuff centered around winners like the Dogcatchers, babyface Moondogs, the team of evil school principal CW Bergstrom and student Melvin Penrod Jr., and Jeff Gaylord rehashes.

 

BEST BOOKER (Jim Cornette): Antonio Pena, assuming he was doing the booking for AAA. I admit to really digging some of the lucha-meets-Memphis bullshit technicality finishes, plus he was heading the only promotion to truly be expanding at the end of the year rather than shrinking and booked some tremendous long-term angles like the Los Gringos Locos formation and the Jake/Konnan feud. Cornette was much the same though on a much, much smaller scale and deserves credit as well. Riki Choshu gave up the book about halfway through the year when he blew out his achilles, and I also think he was starting to get overly cute with the surprise finishes. When Tenryu went down first in the 10-man elimination match, WAR may as well have thrown the towel in right there. And as much as I marked out for Liger pinning Hase, what did that really do for Liger?

 

BEST PROMOTER (Giant Baba): Antonio Pena, for the reasons stated above.

 

BEST GIMMICK (The Undertaker): Evil Doink, comfortably. I think way, way more could have been done with the character.

 

WORST GIMMICK (The Shockmaster): Can I vote for A Flair for the Gold? That was the worst use of a legendary wrestler I could imagine. If I can’t…God, still a lot of choices here. The WWF is heading into its all-time worst period for character creativity and there were some epic duds in ’93. The Shockmaster was a bad but not otherworldly gimmick ruined by a disastrous technical error, so the biggest faceplant for me goes to Friar Ferguson. Ferguson vs. Chris Duffy is a strong Worst Match of the Year contender, come to think of it.

 

MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (Bastion Booger): Mike Shaw in general. The gimmicks weren’t necessarily his fault, but they were what they were. Giant Gonzalez and that outfit are a strong contender as well.

[Loss]

Good stuff, as always. What stands out to me more about 1993 than anything else is that this was the year the gap in match quality between the U.S. and Japan just got really huge. I think the best stuff in the U.S. wasn't too far behind the best Japanese stuff from 1990-1992, but in 1993, Japan took a giant leap forward and American wrestling did not.

 

I think you'll enjoy 1994 more than 1993, even if there is no business turnaround in sight. Other than 1997, it's my favorite year that we have covered.

[Loss]

Oh, and I think the ultimate takeaway from Bill Watts' WCW run was that he was like a doctor who stopped practicing years before who was still great at accurately diagnosing but hadn't kept up with the latest advances in treatment. I do think by the end of his run, he was starting to get it and had a much better feel for who the best players were, but it was too little too late. And even if he was spot on from the beginning, the Watts mentality in a corporate environment like TBS was never going to last.

[Kevin Ridge]

Been going through the full Raw episodes from 1993 and just having so much fun watching them. Might feel a bit different if I had to comment in full about them. Instead I can just sit back and watch. I know Bartlett is hated on for good reason. But from watching these full shows I am going to say he was better on commentary than Superstar Graham. He had his moments and could play off a guy like Heenan. He did do a horrible McMahon impression and Monsoon no sold the whole thing.

[Kevin Ridge]

One of my favorite moments of 1993 Raws is when McMahon cuts to a segment with IRS and calls him Mr. Rotundo twice!!! IRS just stares back with this look on his face where he doesn't know how to respond.

[DR Ackermann]

I've been going through Monday Night RAW and the WWF PPVs in 1993 on the Network the last couple of weeks and here are some notes I took down after the first half of the year.

 

As of July 5, 1993 in my WWF watching, Marty Janetty & Doink the Clown have been by far the best performers on RAW. The high point being their 2/3 falls match with one another in late June. Everything Doink has been involved with this year has been entertaining, his facial expressions are great and his in-ring work has been solid to very good. He is keeping the mid-card afloat. Janetty was fired after the Royal Rumble for showing up drunk and having a so-so match with Shawn Michaels who has yet to find his groove as a singles wrestler or as a heel. Since Janetty returned he has probably been the best wrestler on RAW.

 

Bret Hart has made a few appearances on RAW but his wrestling has been decent, nothing spectacular. His work on the PPVs is a whole different story. On the big shows he is definitely the MVP. He got a pretty good match out of Razor Ramon at the Royal Rumble who wrestles like a rookie and not someone with the 9 years of experience he has. Ramon’s former tag team partner in the AWA, Curt Hennig has been disappointing as well. Aside from his match at KOTR with Bret Hart, Hennig has looked lazy in almost everything he’s done outside of his over-the-top and unnecessary bumping.

 

Jim Ross came into the WWF right before Wrestlemania and since then the match quality has really stepped up. I wonder how much of that can be attributed to his influence on the product. Prior to his arrival nobody on RAW really stood out in the ring. The wrestlers who seemed to be having the best matches were Virgil and the Beverly Brothers. Their work wasn’t really anything special and they weren’t having especially good matches, but the three of them always seemed to work the hardest and have the most interesting matches. I don’t know if any of the matches would actually be considered good besides maybe one or two but they were definitely the standouts.

 

1-2-3 Kid just arrived and it looks like the wrestling is going to get better. Also it is worth mentioning how well Lex Luger has been playing his role in and out of the ring. He has been outworking and outperforming Henning and a lot of other guys. He carried Tatanka to a decent match at KOTR and I’m looking forward to how he will do in the main event after his face turn.