What are you watching?

[Johnny Sorrow]

I am watching Baby Doll serving her 30 days as Dusty's valet. Dream had her cleaning out the horse stalls at Nelson Royal's ranch. Later Baby Doll escaped riding Floyd the horse . All of the fans were concerned about Floyd's safety . Dusty revealed on TV that he did get Floyd back to ranch. However the news on Floyd was not good.

 

 

Baby Doll put too much weight on Floyd. As a result Floyd has swayback . Floyd refused to eat and he could not sleep. In the end Floyd was put on to pasture. In my book this makes Baby Doll one of the biggest heels of all time.

Or it makes Dusty a dick for calling Baby Doll fat and blaming her for the condition of a horse his giant fat ass probably hurt.

[Memphis Mark]

 

I am watching Baby Doll serving her 30 days as Dusty's valet. Dream had her cleaning out the horse stalls at Nelson Royal's ranch. Later Baby Doll escaped riding Floyd the horse . All of the fans were concerned about Floyd's safety . Dusty revealed on TV that he did get Floyd back to ranch. However the news on Floyd was not good.

 

 

Baby Doll put too much weight on Floyd. As a result Floyd has swayback . Floyd refused to eat and he could not sleep. In the end Floyd was put on to pasture. In my book this makes Baby Doll one of the biggest heels of all time.

Or it makes Dusty a dick for calling Baby Doll fat and blaming her for the condition of a horse his giant fat ass probably hurt.

 

 

Yeah . Maybe it does. The whole thing is pretty funny . Dusty was such a great story teller he could get the audience emotionally invested in Floyd the horse . I still blame Baby Doll . Dusty was not really fat , he was just big boned . You know like Tommy Rich.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/halloween-havoc-96/#.VnwA_hUrLIU

The Mega Powers explode...only 8 years too late. Plus The Outsiders battle Harlem Heat, The Horsemen brawl with the Dungeon of Doom, The Total Package takes the measure of The Enforcer, Jericho tries to ground Syxx, The Giant crushes Double J, DDP collides with Eddy Guerrero and Rey Jr and Dean Malenko engage in a near classic!! Plus backstage news from the period including how close Mean Gene, Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan were to jumping back to the WWF, Jerry Saggs shooting on Nitro and much more!

[JerryvonKramer]

Just watched Nitro 1, really poor show.

 

Next up, the Mid-South episode from 1982 on the network.

[thebrainfollower]

Cannot disagree with you more Parv. Okay there's no 5 star match on Nitro but it sure hooked me as a 15 year old and made me psyched to see the next one. Playing some of your greatest hits (Pillman-Liger, Sting-Flair) is a good idea, Lex Luger's return making the show instant must see TV, there's a lot of good stuff right away. And it forced Vince to up Raw's game almost right away as well.

[JerryvonKramer]

I watched the Mid South from 82, the first Prime Time of 87, and the first NWA World Championship Wrestling show of 86.

 

NWA was by far the best show, and by a long shot (so loaded with promo talent). Then MSW (was the one with Gorilla angle, great DiBiase promo as the "proto-Million Dollar Man" rat-pack leader). Then Prime Time (Heenan had a headache, random MSG matches including a decent Islanders vs Dream Team one and Tito vs. Jake), then the Nitro.

 

I thought Eric Bishcoff was awful on Nitro and the whole thing was too much hard sell, inauthentic, fake seeming and generally second-rate try-hard stuff as a product. Hated the presentation.

 

Only highlight was Hogan in that random restaurant shilling "Pastamania". Luger showdown with Hogan was very awkward.

 

Edit: interestingly, Harley Race had squash matches on both the NWA and WWF shows. He busted out a fisherman suplex on the WWF squash which surprised me a bit. Don't recall him using it. The NWA squash was longer and he used several big bombs on the chubby jobber, Tony Zane. Made me wonder what he was doing in JCP in Jan of 86.

[thebrainfollower]

Never been a fan of the Dusty's overall presentation of the weekly TV show. Yeah tons of promos. I don't need to hear the entire roster week in and week out myself particularly if nothing has really changed to give what they say much meaning. Like hearing from guys only maybe once a month at most on promos. Couple that with too rare quality matches and squashes so short as to be meaningless and I never liked it. Add to that David Crockett who I cannot stand and I just don't care for that TV product in precisely the same way you don't care for Nitro. Not to mention some really dated locations and production values, though that got much better as time went on.

 

There was a ton of hard sell by Eric I agree. He himself was convinced the show would not work and his career was on the line. That he worked hard (too hard) to sell it makes sense. Matches were good stuff for North American TV in 1995. ECW was a highlights reel and Raw before Nitro had one midcard match a night and a bunch of squashes on average. I'm tempted to say it's a question of historical context mattering because I watched all of ECW 1995 this year and found that rather tedious to be honest.

 

The fisherman suplex was Harley's FINISHER in the WWF for his whole run Parv. He won nearly every squash match with it. Though he wouldn't always do a bridge into a pin.

 

Sorry to sound like a grumpy old guss.

[JerryvonKramer]

Some guys are 90s guys, some guys are 80s guys. Different strokes etc. I'd almost always take 86 Crockett TV over 95 WCW TV.

 

Harley hasn't used a fisherman suplex in any of his matches pre-WWF that I've seen which is everything on tape upto 1983.

[thebrainfollower]

I love 80's WWF. Love 80's Mid South. Love 80's Memphis. Love 80's WCCW in its presentation (matches sometimes leave me cold). Like what I've seen of Georgia, Florida and MACW 81-83. Not a fan of 85-87 JCP unless there's a good match on (love the end of 85 episode) and don't care for the little I've seen of pre ESPN AWA as a weekly TV Show. These are just the weekly TV shows I am talking about not the promotions in general.

 

By contrast 94 Raw's I find duller than death and have never been able to get into ECW but I love the year and a half of Smoky Mountain I've seen. So I am not really a 90's guy. Some of it (Superstars, Challenge) is heavily nostalgia induced but some isn't. I don't think it's an anti-Southern bias either to be honest.

[JerryvonKramer]

Like I said Brain, different strokes. I love that Techwood studio and that whole show. The squash matches are generally a lot longer and more compelling than on other shows, especially WWF which would have very very short matches.

 

JCP will give you jobbers who got in offense. More Rocky King and Mike Jackson types. I love "the world" of JCP in the 80s.

 

I mean I love "the world" of WWF too, from literally 75 to 93. I love the worlds of Mid-South and to a slightly lesser extent Memphis and Houston too.

 

I think it's kinda unique that you'd dislike the Crockett TV, not many hardcore fans in that boat.

 

I basically loathe the babyface Hogan era WCW, if we ever get there in WTBBP, you'll probably hear a rant from me every show.

[Cap]

I am watching disk one of the 80s lucha set.

[thebrainfollower]

I don't think I dislike Crockett TV per se. Everything I saw prior to Dusty taking over was fine. The small studio and the short squash matches fit the era really well. I love Bob Caudle (odd given my political leanings) and Johnny Weaver a lot. The 84 stuff I didn't really care for. And again the 85-87 stuff does nothing for me. It's as if nothing really happens. Every week the whole roster comes out to talk. But none of them have anything new to say more often than not. When you've seen one episode of the show, I feel like you've seen them all. There are exceptions, every now and then you get an amazing TV match much better than anything Superstars or Challenge put on. Those are great. But overall I feel like I'm watching a dated product by even then standards. I also am watching one of my least favorite announcers which doesn't help.

As to short squash matches...............there's nobody in WWF TV who could ever compete with Magnum TA for short squashes. I get these guys are jobbers and it was done to build TA up but armdrag, armbar, belly to belly DONE never did it for me. For whatever reason I think it's too short to be plausible and you're talking to someone who likes a wrestling viking. Also I think a LOT of it is the "everyone talks about Dusty all the time" nonsense. I watched the entire year of 86 and early 87 about 3 years ago, more or less weekly and that does happen despite what some have claimed.

 

And it's not that I don't like that roster. I like Ric and the Horsemen. Love JC and the Midnights, love the Rock and Rolls. Have no problem with the Boogie Woogie Man Paul Jones feud, though I think Jones is a bad promo. Like Ronnie Garvin in ring. Like Dusty in moderation. Like Paul and the Road Warriors. But every time someone suggests watching an episode I can think of a half dozen territories I'd rather watch their weekly TV show.

 

NWA Main Event by contrast I love. Clashes too obviously.

[thebrainfollower]

And Parv I get why you hate Hogan babyface WCW. I hate a LOT of it too but there are good things here and there. The thing is though, it was doing much better than DA and Vader WCW in every way except critical approval. So it makes sense why they did that even if it stinks.

[thebrainfollower]

To the thread I watched the entire run of January 91 on Prime Time. That was ROUGH let me tell you. When your best match in a month is Tugboat vs. Dino Bravo you are in trouble. It was the very end of the Gorilla/Brain run though and that was just as great and entertaining as I remember. I watched all the network stuff on Prime Time as it went up and was pleased by the number of decent matches I got. This month though was not good. They even showed a Valentine-Saba Simba match twice.

[victory]

I don't think I dislike Crockett TV per se. Everything I saw prior to Dusty taking over was fine. The small studio and the short squash matches fit the era really well. I love Bob Caudle (odd given my political leanings) and Johnny Weaver a lot. The 84 stuff I didn't really care for. And again the 85-87 stuff does nothing for me. It's as if nothing really happens. Every week the whole roster comes out to talk. But none of them have anything new to say more often than not. When you've seen one episode of the show, I feel like you've seen them all. There are exceptions, every now and then you get an amazing TV match much better than anything Superstars or Challenge put on. Those are great. But overall I feel like I'm watching a dated product by even then standards. I also am watching one of my least favorite announcers which doesn't help.

As to short squash matches...............there's nobody in WWF TV who could ever compete with Magnum TA for short squashes. I get these guys are jobbers and it was done to build TA up but armdrag, armbar, belly to belly DONE never did it for me. For whatever reason I think it's too short to be plausible and you're talking to someone who likes a wrestling viking. Also I think a LOT of it is the "everyone talks about Dusty all the time" nonsense. I watched the entire year of 86 and early 87 about 3 years ago, more or less weekly and that does happen despite what some have claimed.

 

And it's not that I don't like that roster. I like Ric and the Horsemen. Love JC and the Midnights, love the Rock and Rolls. Have no problem with the Boogie Woogie Man Paul Jones feud, though I think Jones is a bad promo. Like Ronnie Garvin in ring. Like Dusty in moderation. Like Paul and the Road Warriors. But every time someone suggests watching an episode I can think of a half dozen territories I'd rather watch their weekly TV show.

 

NWA Main Event by contrast I love. Clashes too obviously.

Do you enjoy the Worldwide and Pro shows? The atmosphere is different compared to the Saturday Night show due to being in an actual arena.

[thebrainfollower]

Yes I like those more. I don't think it's studio wrestling I hate per se as Memphis was mostly studio stuff.

[PhilTLL]

I love Bob Caudle (odd given my political leanings)

 

Eh? Did I miss something? I've watched a lot of Bob Caudle and I have no idea what this is in reference to.

[topropepodcast]

His normal 9-5 job was working for Jesse Helms.

[PhilTLL]

His normal 9-5 job was working for Jesse Helms.

Oh. Yeah, that's pretty gross.

[Robert S]

I was watching the Owen Hart documentary on the WWE DVD. Some random thoughts:

- The whole thing is not very deep (70 minutes main feature + 45 minutes of stories), but a good enough watch.

- There is no reason for Beth Phoenix to get 5 minutes or so airtime on an Owen Hart DVD. I guess they crew flew out to interview Edge and took some footage with Beth as well, but still.

- The announcement of Owen's death by JR during the Over the Edge broadcast is so surreal. In the background you see a mixture of shocked fans and fans who thought the whole thing was part of the show (including a 10-year-old flipping the bird in direction of the camera).

- I don't get why they had 10 guys telling their version of the "Owen prank calls a guy in the hotel" ribs. After the third time it gets really repetitive.

- The way they covered Owen's dead on the documentary is really bad. They go really fast over it (like 2.5 minutes on his death plus 1.5 minutes for the "Raw is Owen" show) and the gist is "Owen fell from the ceiling and died, it was just bad luck", even Bret summarized the whole thing that way ("It was an accident, just a horrible accident and no one could have known how bad it would go that day."). No talk why he was there, no mention of the quick release mechanism, of course no mention of the law suits etc.

- Obviously the name "Martha Hart" is not mentioned at all (and neither are his kids for that matters).

[Wahoos Leg]

Just finished AAW's Windy City Classic from last month.

 

Thought Chris Hero vs. Pentagon Jr. was fantastic, and really enjoyed Fenix vs. Ciampa as well. Definitely seek out those two matches. The rest of the show was fair to middling, at best.

[thebrainfollower]

Found a guy on youtube who is putting up whole shows from the 80's and 90's. Some pretty obscure stuff as well. Watching an August of 93 episode of ECW now. Caught some 89 Stampede and within 10 minutes I see what you are all complaining about in Ed Whalen. Also caught the first 2 episodes of SMW. Great stuff as prior to this I had seen only their 92 and first half of 93 shows as well as the 3 DVD's and some odds and ends matches.

[Migs]

Found a guy on youtube who is putting up whole shows from the 80's and 90's. Some pretty obscure stuff as well. Watching an August of 93 episode of ECW now. Caught some 89 Stampede and within 10 minutes I see what you are all complaining about in Ed Whalen. Also caught the first 2 episodes of SMW. Great stuff as prior to this I had seen only their 92 and first half of 93 shows as well as the 3 DVD's and some odds and ends matches.

 

Channel name?

[Kronos]

I just watched the hour or so of SHINE 30: started really rough, got somewhat better as it went along. It feels petty to rag on them, given that many of these women are 21 year old novices seemingly being trained by Big Vito, but wow. Everything about it - cameras, audio, stage, ring, gear, characters, insanely bad announcing, everyone's name and gimmick reeking of Cinemax - feels super low-rent. I like WWN and wish them well, and thought there was some positives: Ivelisse carries herself well, the Thunderkitty gimmick is somewhat amusing. Plus a Naylor cameo! It's hard, though: whether it's the creep fan base or the actual presentation, there's something about women on the indies that feels like it has to be tremendous stuff to not make me kind of squeamish.

 

 

I have not seen SHINE. But I was a big SHIMMER, WSU, ChickFights, etc fan from about 2008-10.

 

When I look at that stuff now and/or think about myself back then, it just seems so seedy.

[thebrainfollower]

Buckshot Levonsque. Sorry was unaware we could link and post channel names.