[1994-05-14-USWA-TV] Eddie Gilbert celebration

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Clip of Lawler/Gilbert vs Jarrett/Dream Machine from Mid South Coliseum. Gilbert turns on Lawler, throwing fire in his face. This is awesome in execution, but ridiculous. Gilbert had turned way too many times in Memphis at this point, and Lawler looks dumb for trusting him enough to team with him, considering their history. Regardless of anything else, HE RAN OVER YOU WITH A CAR. Gilbert should be a heel for life in the territory, or at the very least, on the opposite side of Lawler.

 

Brian Christopher eventually makes the save, but gets attacked by Doug Gilbert. EDDIE MARLIN then makes the save, throwing punches at the heels but getting taken down himself. Like I said, extremely well-executed, but when you assume your fans are stupid, you end up with stupid fans.

 

On that point, Jeff Jarrett finally sees enough and makes the save, which is even more stupid after he just turned on Lawler the week before.

 

Back at the studio, Gilbert is interviewed. Hey, there's Ian Rotten and the Eliminators with a birthday cake! Well, we know how that's going to end up.

 

He does his famous "I Am The USWA" speech, which seems to be him shooting a little bit.

 

After a commercial, Gilbert offers a piece of cake to Colorado Kid, who turns them down and gets attacked and covered in the cake for his troubles. Well, I knew someone would wear it.

 

Lawler and Christopher finally make the save. Like I said, these are all pros, and this is well done, but this feels like a desperate angle from a dying promotion.

[Kevin Ridge]

Gilbert turn was way too obvious from his promos so far on set. I don’t think the crowd were really buying him as Lawler’s ally anyways. Good beatdown goes on. Jarrett turns after just a week of beating up Lawler. This needed to be stretched out over a course of couple weeks at least. Cory is doing his best Milton standing around waiting for cake. Angry promo from Gilbert. He tries to explain his reasons for what he did to Lawler. Cory gets really pissed that they wasted the cake and didn’t give him a piece.

[Exposer]

This is a good angle but there are way too many turns going on at this point. I have no clue who is face or heel at times in this promotion. I did enjoy Eddie Gilbert's "I am the USWA!" speech. This is pretty good stuff but oh so confusing.

[soup23]

Yeah I don't know if there was stuff played up that we didn't see with Gilbert proving loyalty but the way it worked, Lawler looked stupid and Jarrett looks even worse turning in a week. Have mixed emotions like Loss, the work is fine and everyone plays their role well, but it was too quick and felt desperate. I also thought that the Dream Machine/ Lawler feud was fine and actually felt pretty fresh in Memphis as does Doug vs. Christopher so as much as I like Lawler and Eddie it just feels so rehashed.

[Cox]

This promo feels really sad to me. We all know that Eddie Gilbert wanted to be Jerry Lawler more than anything in the world, and knowing that not only does Eddie Gilbert never quite become Jerry Lawler, but winds up quitting the USWA again within a few weeks never to return, and winds up dead less than a year later...I can't help but feel really, really sad when I watch this promo.

[PeteF3]

They're really going for the Dusty/Ole thing here, but that was built up for a year or more of Ole as a babyface--after a long feud with the Heenan Family it truly felt like he had "seen the light" before suckering Rhodes in. This is just another weekly turn from a guy who was already a heel at one point in this very stint, and the later attempts at bringing up how Gilbert had strung us along for THREE WHOLE WEEKS just sound ridiculous. And the Jarrett stuff is completely nonsensical--the 3-on-1 last week was just fine with him, but this one is apparently over-the-top. I get the angle of him saving his grandfather, but Jarrett walked off in disgust before Marlin got involved.

 

I agree with the previous comments here--this was set up as a major, life-altering event but it simply rings false, because there was pretty much nothing more that could shock people in Memphis other than maybe bringing in another WWF star. On the plus side, everyone here is so good at what they do that through all the bullshit and the real-life drama, this still ends up being a compelling piece of television. Gilbert, whether it leads anywhere or not, does cut one of the promos of his life (though I definitely wouldn't have it at the top). The action at the Mid-South Coliseum is good. The group of heels comes off as a legitimate threat the likes of which we really haven't seen in Memphis since Eric Embry's Texas brigade. Dave Brown is INCREDIBLE here--I wasn't buying what they were selling but damned if Dave doesn't do his best to get me to reconsider. He plays every note from disgust to annoyance to righteous anger absolutely perfectly, and it's one of the best things I've ever seen from him.

 

The past clips of Gilbert's misdeeds as commercial bumpers are at the same time a very cool nod to history and a reminder of just what a non-event this latest turn was.